Disco de Lindsey Buckingham: “Law and Order”

If you took all the Buckingham tracks off of the Fleetwood Mac masterpiece "Tusk" and assembled them onto one solo album, the resulting project would not be too far away from "Law and Order". This album is the first time we get to hear Buckingham outside the constraints of the Fleetwood Mac machine. Spare and simple, all the tracks explode with incredible energy and individuality. Except for a few, Lindsey plays all the instruments and is responsible for all the vocals with the exception of a few nice back up contributions from Christine McVie. "Law and Order" finally made fans realize just how responsible the Buckingham "sound" was for Fleetwood Mac's success. Much of what many thought was Stevie Nicks's harmonies was infact layers of Lindsey Buckingham's vocals. Highlights include "Bwana"( a tale of bandmate Mick Fleetwood's trip to Ghana to record with drum musicians) "Trouble" with gorgeous acoustic guitar solo, and Johnny Stew.

Released from the confines of Fleetwood Mac and collaboration with Stevie Nicks for the first time, Buckingham was free to explore his eclectic musical influences, and explore he did. He mixes original material with classic cover versions, and while the comedy vocals on September Song and the kazoo solo on Bwana may not be to everyone's taste, his sense of fun really comes through on this album.

Listening to songs like Shadows of the West, Trouble, and A Satisfied Mind, you can hear the progression of ideas that began with Tusk, and later developed fully on Out of the Cradle. The two albums sit happily side by side, although they were separated by more than ten years. Once again he lets rip on his guitar, producing gems like Mary Lee Jones, Johnny Stew and the positively jaunty Love From Here, Love From There.

Overall, this album is a highly enjoyable departure from the more collaborative process of Fleetwood Mac, and reveals the kind of musician Buckingham might have been had he not been tempered, or perhaps stifled, by the band.

I'm a Lindsay fan when he's with Fleetwood Mac: I think he keeps the "teeth" in their sound (along with Fleetwood's drumming) that helps them stay away from drifting into sappy adult contemporary pop they'd otherwise find themselves swamped in. His experimentalism was a big part of what made their comeback album SAY YOU WILL pretty decent.

Having now heard all the band output back to the early days, I've been borrowing solo CDs from the library and this was one of the first because of the inclusion of "Trouble" which I remembered fondly from the 80s. I can't say I'm not a bit underwhelmed at this disc as a whole.

The artistic reaching is definitely here (nearly all instruments are played by Lindsay and tricks like the dischordant jam that ends "Mary Lee Jones" or the laughing in the instrumental fade of "I'll Tell You Now" still turn up) but the songs themselves aren't strong enough.

HIGHLIGHTS:

"Trouble" was the hit back when and it still sounds decent, although I'm struck now with how little there is to it lyrically..2 short verses and chorus ad infinitum. It isn't wearing as well with time as Lindsay's Mac hits. "It was I" is a cover of an obscure 50s track from Skip and Flip. It's a nice tune but I don't really care for the "little kid" harmony from Carol Harris."That's How We Do it in L.A." was too stripped back to ever be a hit but that's Top 40's loss. Buckingham yelps out a wonderfully biting jab. ("You'll win prizes if you stay...") It's pretty ironic that at the height Of Buckingham's largesse he decided to cover Porter Wagoner's paean to simple living ("A Satisfied Mind"). Despite the aesthetic problem of adapting the working class hymn to laid back California pop, it works pretty well.

LOWS:

"Johnny Stew" wastes the best guitar riff here..and a nice production..on throwaway lyrics in tribute to John Stewart [ex-Kingston Trio. The pair teamed up on Stewart's 80s hit "Gold".]("Johnny,Johnny,Johnny/Everybody's talking about the amazing Johnny Stew"). "September Song" is a boring retread of a classic Tin Pan Alley standard as Lindsay offers a strained vocal over a shattered musicbox backing.

BOTTOM LINE:

Diehard Buckingham fans and Mac completists will probably have to have this, but I find later solo CDs more interesting from him (OUT OF THE CRADLE particularly has some tasty stuff). Despite occasional edginess, this is mostly very subdued fare.

The bad news for those who only want "Trouble" is that it only appears on one other CD, a lackluster grouping of "FM hits" (ASIN B00008F0CE). Isn't it about time for a release of a well selected single disc anthology for Stevie's ex?

2 1/2 stars

"Part of the idea of Tusk was to shake people up and make them think."

--Lindsey Buckingham, in an interview with Blair Jackson, BAM Magazine, 1-30-81

For all of those who considered Tusk to be the ultimate example of rock star excesses/exorcism/eccentricities, wait until you hear this album. On second thought, you might want to reconsider, because Law and Order is an all-around major disappointment. The songwriting craft and instrumental experimentalism that made Tusk such a masterpiece are parodied to such an extent that the only possible explanation would have to be willful neutroticism. This is a bad-boy album: for a point of comparison, think of Andy Summers submitting "Mother" to the Police's Synchronicity, or Pat Metheny's Zero Tolerance for Silence.

As a long time Buckingham fan, I want to say something good about this mess, so here goes: "Trouble" is the lightest and brightest song on this otherwise macabre set, and was quite rightfully a successful hit single. Law and Order's one true songwriting masterpiece, however, is "I'll Tell You Now". This cryptic lyric over a hypnotic swing bass is classic Buckingham and stands head and shoulders above almost everything he wrote in the 1980s. It's one of those unforgetable, "out of nowhere", hyper-inspired, unintentional anthems that makes the dreck surrounding it seem almost worthwhile. Songs such as "Johnny Stew" and "Satisfied Mind" are passable, but far below the usual Buckingham standards. All the rest are nothing short of awful, victimized by their own self-conscious quirkiness. Where Tusk is feisty, Law and Order is manic.

While I will always love Tusk and 1992's Out of the Cradle, Law and Order is nothing more than a jaw-dropping mistake, and with the exception of "Trouble" and "I'll Tell You Now", is best forgotten and avoided. Buckingham himself has seemed rather dismissive of the album in interviews over the years, once describing it as a "grab-bag variety show". If his compositions on the thought-provoking Tusk were meant to shake people up, Law and Order should drive them off the deep end. Even his usually masterful guitar work is reduced to mere noodling on these ditties.

No one can ever accuse Lindsey Buckingham of playing it safe. For his first solo album apart from super-group Fleetwood Mac, Buckingham decided to continue the experimental sound that he began on 1979's TUSK. Instead of crafting a routine pop/rock effort that surely would have guaranteed commercial success, Buckingham chose to continue his pursuit of the testing the limits of the conventional rock sound. This results in a wildly eclectic, but fascinating, recording.

The bulk of LAW AND ORDER is given over to the skewed take on fifties rock n' roll that made up the bulk of TUSK. The breakneck tracks "Bwana" and "Mary Lee Jones" burst forth with a madcap energy that would have traumatized even Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry, while "I'll Tell You Now" and "Love from Here, Love from There" are harmonious, choral-driven love anthems that would make the Beach Boys proud. There is a carnal aggression behind "That's How We Do It in L.A." and "Johnny Stew," both of which mix nervy, warped instrumentation with a wicked sense of ironic humor. In between such aural chaos contains major pop gems like the haunting smash hit "Trouble" (#9 Pop, #12 Mainstream Rock) and the absolutely gorgeous "Shadows of the West."

All of Buckingham's original material is first-rate, although his success with cover songs is a mixed bag. Buckingham's helium voiced, paranoid cover of Skip & Flip's early-sixties' doo-wop hit "It Was I" is loopy fun, where all of the oddball production gimmicks combine to create a giddy masterpiece. Unfortunately, the covers of the Maxwell Anderson/Kurt Weill Tin Pan Alley standard "September Song" and Porter Wagner's country hit "Satisfied Mind" sound clanky and awkward under Buckingham's cluttered production, leaving them sounding more like a string of production tricks rather than actual songs. This is forgivable, however, given that it only occurs twice.

Although LAW AND ORDER was well-received by most music critics when originally released, it failed to match Stevie Nicks' concurrent solo release BELLA DONNA in sales and popularity. Still, LAW AND ORDER peaked at a respectable #32 on Billboard's Hot 200 and further solidified Buckingham's position as the current king of avant-garde rock. The disc is brave, bold, and daring, and will be best appreciated by more adventurous listeners. All the album's sum may be a little off, it's parts are often brilliant.